If you are not from, nor familiar with Dubuque- fear not because it’s likely-standing next to you, a ‘Dubuquer’: And it is these Dubuquers; this Port City’s prince and princesses, your Sherpa’s…that will take you,to the top! while others will simply care for you.

Dubuque’s chunk of limestone (thank you Mr. Benz)… hey! There’s lots of rocks out there man and they all have names… You bastards This “welcoming rock” celebrates; acknowledges what Dubuquers’ all inherently know: We are the ‘Masterpieces on the Mississippi’.

Would you repeat that with me? Aloud-just a few times… it’s gonna feel good I promise. Now, if you live in Denver, repeat as often as you need to in order to achieve congruence; the same for the rest of you. Let’s begin:

“We are the Masterpiece on the Mississippi”
“We are the Masterpiece on the Mississippi”
“We are the Masterpiece on the Mississippi”

I told you that would feel good.
anyway I imagine this limestone imperative to be, to feel less welcoming and more… troublesome, a death-nail for the attributes often associated with hip, contemporary cities.

This creature, this giant River Bat hangs sportingly upside down on a branch that appears to be previously looted. The River Bat argues with the gaunt branches that point over this dead tree. Below it stings the Mississippi (river).

Now I gotta keep it cool man cuz’ you know that the word on the street is that I am indeed a credible Paranormal Witness, ask anyone. All right I kill ghosts, there I said it/but looky here it’s only part-time, and I’m old school and I use a pocket knife… “Whoosh, gone…)

Getting back to the “Masterpiece Creature”- this shallow-faced River Bat, wearing big brown sunglasses, gold-plated hoop earrings and a maudlin make-up scheme comprised from the color palette preferences of this season’s fishing tackle for crank-baits to catch that ‘Trophy Walleye’

This Masterpiece Creature is procreating (now this should put the (B.F.R.O.) folks on their collective smarmy assess; she’s breeding and birthing on each block depositing 2 to 4 pre-owned or slightly used Chevy Cavaliers,be it the sporty sedan or the more sensible four-door. Oddly enough all Chevy Cavaliers here are born between 98 and 02,’ also born healthy with a Sanyo CD player and roomy ashtrays.

The Cavalier is the official pace car of Dubuque. The Cavalier occupies the second and third quadrant on the Dubuque family crest. She is our quixotic metal, our roboid…roboid. That is my word: roboid - I just made it up! All of you take witness for I have coined. Everywhere you look, every 50 feet or so, there’s another gooey newborn, a Chevy Cavalier-year’s 98’ through 02’

But that’s neither here nor there.

Never soon but immediately after birth, the ‘Masterpiece Creature’, the Roboid, she learns to write parking tickets and how to phone tow-trucks, she nibbles on the very edge of my MasterCard stopping only to flip the card over to taste my 3 secret numbers; I suppose her tongue lather’s up the magnetic strip to make a nice gravy. I dunno, I work with a lot of deer hunters and believe you me this savory ritual is passed down from one family member to another; be you a pregnant River Bat with a parking meter fetish sitting atop a brood of Chevy Cavaliers, years 98’ through 02’ or our much celebrated Dubuquers, the street princes and princesses.

I’m a victim of Dubuque’s Masterpiece on the Mississippi; the creature, the Roboid has ticketed, towed and taken my yellow motor-car daffodil, my four-door Cavalier Sedan to an unfamiliar place for un-pious activities. Oh, I’ve found the lot, seen the hatchlings fenced in, her nest is top-crested with razor-wire and it looks much like the parking lot at work:

Ah… but we enjoy this port city’s Feudal system, and whether a peasant or a lord we enjoy driving our Chevy Cavaliers up and down these beautiful bluffs or parking with our lovers, paramours near the 4th Street elevator, getting hot and heavy just thinking about stabbing the lazy sloth-induced mayor who had built then rode what is now a dirty, obtuse elevator- coaster up and down the bluff on miniature rail tracks to and fro home. As a tourist or otherwise, you can re-live this dream by paying a couple of bucks and riding in this petri dish… it’s an attraction.

Dubuquer’s are… well we’re “old-fashioned” we like to seduce our men and women with old candy bars like the Charleston Chew: about twelve inches long, baton –like in shape, comes in 3 flavors and can be frozen into an instrument of brutality… “But it’s for my sweetie”.

I must leave you now mysteriously,so let me introduce you this quandary: What if Jim Morrison fronted Led Zeppelin instead of Robert Plant?

Jeez… I’m finally complete but please join me in this small “pinky” episode:

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